Burn
by mintos013
Summary: AU: Yumi has a dream.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Rurouni Kenshin

**Burn**

* * *

Yumi saw a figure in pain. It was a man made of smoke and flashes of light.

She moved away from the body of her sister and left the charred corpse behind. The sky was alive with fire. The village all around her burned. The ground was covered in broken bones. There were more bones than rocks. She caught herself wondering how it was possible for so many picked-clean bones to be scattered about in one place, but Yumi felt afraid of the answer, so she hurried after the man made of smoke and light. As far as she could tell he was the only other living person in the village. If she lost track of him she'd be alone, and if there was one thing that Yumi Komagata hated, it was being by herself.

The figure lurched ahead in a hazardous gait. He looked ready to fall, and yet, he was moving so fast. She couldn't keep up. The air was so dirty. Grit was forming at the corners of her mouth and eyes. She scratched it away and kept following the man.

"Wait!" Yumi cried after him, but he did not. "Please!" she added. "Don't leave me behind. If you could just slow down a little."

The village seemed to fade away into a growing fog of ash. Instead of smoldering houses, Yumi now saw great heaps of bones stacked into large mounds that stood so close together there was no real way to go around them. She would have to climb over them to catch up with the burning man.

He still walked several feet ahead of her, and he crossed the mounds with all the feral grace of an animal scraping its way up a cliff. He was the only bright thing in the world now. If she fell too far behind him, she'd be lost in the fog with forgotten bits of humans to keep her company.

Refusing to let this happen, Yumi struggled up the first hill of bones that rested in her way. Her feet slid through the pile as she forced a path up one side of it and carefully picked her way down the other side by searching for good footholds in the grisly mess. She was almost to level ground when the flat bottom of her sandal rolled over a femur. Yumi fell on her side and tumbled along with a few dislodged bones.

After landing hard on what she assumed was the ground, Yumi stood up shakily. The bones cracked under her weight. She looked at the cuts and blood on her palms, and then at the damage to the back of her hands. It was then that a dark, calloused hand took hold of her fingers in a very gentle gesture.

Yumi gasped, recognizing the body more than the face as she looked up from their joined hands. Yumi had never really seen his face for what it truly was. Even when it wasn't covered in bandages, his face was covered in scarred tissue; his features were disfigured to the point that she would never be able to accurately imagine how his face originally appeared. Even now it was hard to focus on it, but she knew him.

"Lord Shishio!" Yumi laid her face against his chest in relief. She held onto his hand with both of hers and pressed it to the center of her chest. Then slowly, to her horror, she realized he was no longer moving, not even breathing. His body was rigid and still. Yumi pulled away just enough so that she could see his face again and saw that his eyes were completely white.

A wind began to gust, and Yumi watched her lover's body began to crumble like a statue made of packed sand. His hand fell apart in her grip. She screamed as the rest of his body broke apart and dropped to the ground in lumps of hot ash that swirled up into the violent wind and pushed her around. Yumi screamed and took refuge amongst the bones, lying low and closing her eyes until the noise of the wind went away.

When she opened her eyes, Yumi saw that her whole body was coated in a fine, gray powder. She swallowed. Her throat burned. Orange flecks of light drifted in the air around her. The soft skin of her arms began to blacken and form cracks.

* * *

Yumi sat up from the futon, pressing a palm to her aching forehead. She looked to her side and saw him sleeping there, injured by the Battousai but alive. Yumi wiped the sweat from her eyes and watched him sleep.

She had been so close to losing him.

**The end**


End file.
